Question for U.S. students.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>HI, i go to school in S Korea and i was wandering,
there are so many schools in the states and so many of them are
good. and i was looking at the u.s. news rank , gourman, etc. and
there are such rankings for Korean unis too, but it tends to be different in reality, some schools may be ranked high but ppl don't really think they're that good and stuff.</p>

<p>so , my question is, is "ivy league" a big deal?
what schools in the U.S. are considered as really prestigious schools?</p>

<p>and, how did you all select your colleges? what did you consider?</p>

2

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=95198%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=95198&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>First off, Gourman can be thrown away. The rankings are really skewed. </p>

<p>Second, no, the ivy league is not a big deal. When it comes down to it, they're basically a group of schools in the same sports league that offer no scholarships and an undergraduate education no better or worse than other top schools. </p>

<p>Finally, I looked for schools that fit ME. Harvard may well be the most "prestigious" school in the world, but it didn't fit me at all, so I didn't apply. I'm interested in biology, so I looked for schools that offered a strong program and good grad placement rates. I also wanted a fairly actice social scene but not a "party school." I also wanted a school fairly close to home that also offered a strong study abroad program. Size was also important (medium-sized). When it came time to apply, only a few schools met my criteria.</p>

<p>Don't pick out a school based on rankings! If you're happy at a "lower" school, that's fine! Better that than to be unhappy at HYP, I'd say. :)</p>

4

<p>of course, coming from asia, i'm assuming you're applying predominantly based on prestige and science/math. The schools I would say are the best based on these points are:</p>

<p>Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, Duke, University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin: Madison, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Pomona, Northwestern, Tufts, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia</p>

<p>(in no particular order)</p>

<p>I'm probably missing some, but, as you can see, ivy league doesn't mean that much in terms of prestige or quality of education. Though if you go ivy league, you can usually expect a high-caliber education.</p>

<p>And as to choosing colleges, my school's valedictorian had a very good chance at harvard/yale/princeton, but he decided to attent swarthmore instead because it was smaller and more focused. Another girl in my school went to Harvard, despite hating the program, location, and campus, simply beacuse it was "Harvard". It all depends on what you think is more important. And, generalizing for asians, it tends to be prestige.</p>

5

<p>LACs like Swarthmore, Reed, Harvey Mudd, Carleton, Davidson, Grinnell, Kalamazoo, Williams, etc. actually have better graduate school placement in the sciences than the large research universities like the ivies, JHU, Stanford, Michigan, etc. Research is a strong focus at almost any LAC (to get their students into grad school), so don't limit yourself to universities. They're not necessarily better in this regard.</p>

<p>tranman, you did miss some. You include Brown and Tufts for science and math but leave off UNC Chapel Hill and Rice? :)</p>

6

<p>lol. good point. around the end I was just tossing in the rest of the ivies and tufts, the almost-kinda-ivy. I also forgot schools like rose-hulman and harvey mudd...</p>

7

<p>umm, i'm not exactly interested in science but thanx for all the replies : ) oh, and what do you think about Georgetown?</p>

8

<p>Oh. At least you get the point that LACs are worth looking into. :o </p>

<p>Anyway, Georgetown for what? For example, their international relations program is good, but I don't think their music program is (if they have one). :)</p>

<p>Their DC location is a benefit to poly sci/international relations.</p>

9

<p>Georgetown is not "awesome" in Political Science. Although excellent in International Relations, Georgetown is only decent in Political Science.</p>

10

<p>Contrary to what everyone here says, Ivy League is a big deal. However, not because it's the Ivy League but because the individual schools in it are all fantastic schools that are top in the nation. There are a lot of wonderful schools outside of the Ivy League that are considered prestigious. Just go down any ranking and see which ones aren't Ivy.</p>

11

<p>shizz how can you say that Ivy League is a big deal but that there are lots of wonderful schools outside of the Ivy League that are prestigious...</p>

12

<p>Soccerguy, I don't think Shizz meant that the Ivies are the only universities that are prestigious. I think his point was that all 8 Ivies are very prestigious and are a big deal. That is hard to deny. Obviously, there are several equally prestigious universities that aren't members of the Ivy League (Cal, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, MIT, Northwestern, Rice and Stanford all come to mind), and I am sure Shizz will agree, but his point is valid.</p>

13

<p>if the other schools are just as good then that makes Ivy less of an importance.</p>

14

<p>Yes and no. If one thinks of it, one conference having 8 universities, all of which are ranked among the top 15 or tp 20 nationally...that is very impressive. My point was that there are other equally strong, equally prestigious universities.</p>

15

<p>Well, it means that Ivies aren't the only important ones, but it doesn't mean they're "less important." Just because Stanford's good too doesn't mean that Princeton is any worse.</p>

<p>An artificial backlash against the Ivies (downplaying their importance and quality) is just as bad as overesteeming them, in my opinion.</p>